Royal biographer Ingrid Seward has a new book out called My Mother And I, which is not about C-Word’s own relationship with her mother. The “my” in this case is C-Word assuming King Charles’s voice, and the book is supposedly a description of Charles and QEII’s relationship. Why then are the first excerpts all about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex? Wait, don’t tell me, I know. Much like Robert Hardman’s recent royal biography, it looks like King Charles’s court is full of busy little bees, dropping all kinds of revisionist history to royal biographers these days. Hardman’s book led to a weeks-long mess where Hardman had to rollback his bizarre claims that QEII was incandescent with rage over her great-granddaughter’s name (Princess Lilibet). Will C-Word have to roll back claims that Prince Philip hated Meghan on-sight and that QEII was judgmental about Meghan’s wedding gown?
From their very first meeting, over tea at Buckingham Palace, the Queen approved of Meghan Markle. Not only did she like her, she had high hopes for what the American actress might be able to achieve with Harry for the youth of the Commonwealth. Soon the country as a whole seemed to take to Meghan with equally genuine delight. One of the few wary of succumbing to her charm offensive, however, was Prince Philip. While the Queen continued to champion Harry’s new love, he warned his wife to be cautious. It was uncanny, he told her, how much Meghan reminded him of the Duchess of Windsor.
He wasn’t simply referring to the fact that both were pencil-slim, dark-haired and glamorous American divorcees. There was a wealth of subtext in his barbed remark. As one who had lived through this tumultuous period of royal history, and been directly affected by it, Queen Elizabeth II was perfectly aware what Philip meant when he drew parallels between Meghan and Wallis. Indeed, much later, she would remark in her clipped way that perhaps Harry had been ‘too in love’ with the American actress.
As for Prince Philip, he never appeared to change his mind about Meghan. From the moment he detected her apparent similarity to Wallis, he referred to her as DoW (short for Duchess of Windsor).
Queen Elizabeth II never voiced her true opinion about Harry’s wife except to her very closest confidantes, such as Lady Elizabeth Anson, or Liza as she was known to her friends. A cousin of the Queen, she used to speak on the telephone to the monarch on a daily basis. Lady Elizabeth told me that the Queen had made only one remark to her about Meghan and Harry’s wedding, which was that the bride’s Givenchy wedding gown was ‘too white’. In the monarch’s view, it was not appropriate for a divorcee getting remarried in church to look quite so flamboyantly virginal.
Nor was the Queen comfortable with the Prince of Wales’s decision to stand in for Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, and walk her down the aisle. She was also concerned about 96-year-old Prince Philip’s decision to hobble down the aisle without a stick, despite having had a hip replacement just five weeks before.
Then there was the service itself. Like many others in the congregation, she was startled by the impassioned outpourings of the American Archbishop Michael Curry, who spoke for more than 14 minutes. Both the Queen and Prince Philip, who hate long sermons, were desperate for him to finish. They must also have been aware that some of those around them were stifling their laughter. One can only speculate about what they thought when Curry, who admitted he didn’t know either Harry or Meghan, later said he’d felt the presence of the slaves from whom he was descended in the chapel, which he felt to be a ‘sign of hope’.
This is most likely going to end up just like Robert Hardman’s Lilibet claims – a week of outrage, a week of “of course Philip was brilliant for hating a Black woman as soon as he saw her,” a week of “it was just awful for Harry and Meghan to invite a Black archbishop to church,” a week of “how dare Meghan wear white at her wedding,” and then C-Word will start rolling back all of these claims. You know why? Because King Charles’s biographers keep making QEII and Philip look horrible. The aim is to wound Harry and Meghan, to insult them, to belittle them, but they don’t have any ammo other than “Harry’s beloved grandparents hated his wife!!”
Also: the old-guard royalists have been trying to make “Meghan is the new Wallis Simpson” for almost eight years. They’ve yet to come up with one compelling reason why Meghan and Wallis are in any way alike (other than they’re both American and have dark hair, which was apparently enough for Philip). Anyway, I believed Meghan when she said she was cool with QEII and Philip. Philip was largely absent from family and palace life at that point, so Meghan probably only met him a handful of times anyway. And let’s be honest, Philip was in no condition to suddenly decide to beef with Harry’s bride.
Remember that stupid story about the Rolls Royce used by Doria and Meghan for H&M’s wedding? It transported Wallis Simpson at one point. There were absolutely people within the palace trying to force the Wallis connection, but I seriously doubt Philip was one of them.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.